Performance Today®

When chamber music lovers visit the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, they don't know what's being played at the afternoon chamber music concerts until they see the program written on a chalkboard outside the Memminger Auditorium. And what a delight it must have been to see a masterpiece like Beethoven's Septet for Winds and Strings listed there a couple of weeks ago. We'll have that performance on today's show.

Liszt could take the music of just about any composer and create a transcription for piano that sounded like the composer, yet was uniquely Liszt. Pianist Yundi Li offers Liszt's version of Verdi from Baden-Baden, Germany. Then another pianist, Jorge Luis Prats, plays a Liszt transcription of Bach at the Miami International Piano Festival. And Angele Dubeau and La Pieta play a Brahms-Liszt combination in Athens, Georgia.

It's winter in the southern hemisphere now. Here in the north, we'll have to rely on violinist Joshua Bell to provide our icicles. He'll perform "Winter" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" in Indiana. We'll also hear music inspired by the beauty of all the seasons, from Tchaikovsky's April in Russia to Astor Piazzolla's "Four Seasons of Buenos Aires."

Violinist Daniel Hope delivers another audio diary entry from the Beaux Arts Trio's final year together. They'll answer the question of how they got their name, and read a fan letter from the Faux Arts Trio. Then they'll play some Schubert in San Francisco, at the last concert of their last U.S. tour.

We'll have performances from two top student orchestras on today's show. The National Orchestral Institute gathers many of the country's best young musicians in Maryland for a month. That's where we'll go to hear Jorge Mester conduct a Mozart Sinfonia. And, from New York City, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski leads the Juilliard Orchestra in Brahms.

Liszt could take the music of just about any composer and create a transcription for piano that sounded like the composer, yet was uniquely Liszt. Pianist Yundi Li offers Liszt's version of Verdi from Baden-Baden, Germany. Then another pianist, Jorge Luis Prats, plays a Liszt transcription of Bach at the Miami International Piano Festival. And Angele Dubeau and La Pieta play a Brahms-Liszt combination in Athens, Georgia.

Music inspired by the misty moors, craggy coasts and swirling seas of Scotland fills our second hour. It culminates in a performance of Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony in Los Angeles by Sir Neville Marriner and the L.A. Philharmonic.

The Bergen Philharmonic is one of the world's oldest orchestras. But the ensemble is gaining fresh acclaim since American conductor Andrew Litton became its music director. During its first U.S. tour in 41 years, the orchestra offered a smashing performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Conductor Franz Welser-Most says that his interpretation of Robert Schumann's Fourth Symphony is informed by the art and poetry that Germany produced in the Romantic era. Listen to the lush and lovely performance that he and the Cleveland Orchestra deliver at Severance Hall in Cleveland.

The Bergen Philharmonic is one of the world's oldest orchestras. But the ensemble is gaining fresh acclaim since American conductor Andrew Litton became its music director. During its first U.S. tour in 41 years, the orchestra offered a smashing performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth in West Palm Beach, Florida.